IN 1928, on a visit to the University of Göttingen in Germany, a young Russian named George Gamow came across a paper by the great Ernest Rutherford, theorising a mechanism for radioactive nuclear decay. As he read, Gamow realised the theory was wrong, and that the new quantum mechanics he had taught himself showed why: the alpha particles Rutherford had discovered could escape the atomic nucleus as a wave. In a flash, Gamow had given physics the crucial concept of quantum tunnelling.
Gamow is one of the “ordinary geniuses” of Gino Segrè’s elegant dual biography. The other is Max…
